Dungeon Siege III should be in an idiom’s dictionary under the phrase “middle of the road.” Everything about it is bland and weightless. Despite all that, it kept me playing long enough to beat it and inspired me to write this article about why it bothered me so much.

Dungeon Siege III tries to craft a compelling look at race in a fantasy universe, but then completely fails to develop and capitalize on its ideas.

Riding hot on the heals of Street Fighter x Mega Man, Capcom has announced its next crossover project with Valve on Friday. Resident Evil 6 x Left 4 Dead 2 will not be a new game, but rather an injection of new content into the PC versions of both titles — all for free.

Resident Evil 6 is getting the lion’s share of crossover content as you get four playable survivors from the Left 4 Dead series — Coach, Nick, Ellis, and Rochelle — in the PC exclusive mode The Mercenaries No Mercy. This mode will also hound players with the Witch and Mini Tank from L4D2.Read more… »

At face value, God of War: Ascension is a wholly unnecessary game. To be blunt, it’s a prequel to a prequel, and doesn’t really offer up anything new for the franchise outside of the multiplayer component. In that regard, people who have grown tired of the God of War formula will find nothing to sway them here.

Everyone else however, will find a solid bit of entertainment ripping apart hundreds of virtual abominations.

MercurySteam has come a long way. After fumbling the much hyped Clive Barker’s Jericho, they were given a new lease on life by Konami, and headed up the reboot of the Castlevania franchise, titled Lords of Shadow.

While it may have more in common with God of War than Castlevania, I found Lords of Shadow to be a serviceable addition to the series, with a compelling story that will captivate most fans.

Mirror of Fate is MercurySteam’s second go, this time opting to go 2D and try their hand at recreating the magic of the portable Castlevania games.

With a rather tall order in front of them, I’m pleased to say that like Lords of Shadow before it, they somewhat succeeded. Read more… »

Bit.Trip Runner was one of the biggest surprises ever on WiiWare. Although the previous Bit.Trip games were excellent, the abstract presentation really turned off a lot of mainstream gamers from enjoying the franchise. But Runner was different.

Runner presented people with a very familiar veneer — a game that looked like one of those countless “runner” games on mobile devices. But in actuality, it was more than that — it was still very much a Bit.Trip title — and in my opinion, it’s easily the best of the franchise.

So, the people have spoken, and we’re getting another Runner game — this time, with a much bigger budget, and with a lot more features.

PC-focused developer Blizzard Entertainment was in attendance at Wednesday’s Playstation meeting, putting a question mark atop several heads for a few seconds before designer Chris Metzen announced Diablo 3 will be coming to both the PS3 and PS4. The console version will support four person, split-screen multiplayer putting your dungeon crawling buddies all on one couch, or as Metzen said with a declarative fist raised, “one couch to rule them all.”

This also means the game will potentially support cross play on the PS Vita. Metzen mentioned that more information is forthcoming at PAX East this year.

So, any non-PC gamers interested? Let us know what you think in the ol’ comments section.

When Metal Gear Rising came across Platinum’s desk, there were already plans for the game in motion. It was originally supposed to tell the story of Raiden’s journey from Metal Gear Solid 2 to 4, and it even was initially thought up as a side story involving Snake’s arch-nemesis, Gray Fox.

But none of that initial plan came to fruition. Instead, an all new story and concept was formed, taking place after the events of Metal Gear Solid 4, directly tying into the events that concluded the game. Naturally, people were worried.

But I have to say: Platinum really knocked it out the park on this one. Read more… »

If you’re a fan of JRPGs, you probably know what to expect from the genre — a sprawling open world map, a rich engrossing story, and colorful characters. Of course, the dark side of JRPGs tends to rear its ugly head as well — long hours of tedious level grinding, difficulty spikes, and superfluous, pointless content.

Roughly translated, “Ni No Kuni” means “The Another World.” But it had another meaning for me. Not only was I whisked away to the wondrous world inside of the game, but it actually brought me to a world of wonder within myself. It was enough wonder, in fact, to make me completely forget about the dark side, and embrace all of the light this game had to offer. Read more… »

Dead Space 2, however, blew me away. I don’t know if it was the increased variety from a raw gameplay standpoint, or the more interesting locales, but Dead Space 2 had me hooked.

Now, it seems as if Dead Space 3 is set to combine the survival horror elements of the first game alongside of the more action oriented portions of the second, as it introduces new systems like weapon crafting, cover, and human on human conflict.

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem — they just…went a little overboard and took away from what made the series so special in the first place.

After a seven year hiatus, Sly and the gang have finally returned in an all new HD release for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, in the spirit of the franchise, has a sufficiently wacky setup: world renown loveable thief Sly Cooper, and his gang of misfits, have to travel through time to rescue his ancestors and stop an evil force from screwing with the space time continuum.

Nintendo just released another new trailer for the upcoming 3DS game Fire Emblem: Awakening. This video shows off the character progression and class systems in the game. I recommend you watch this video as it shows how to get your characters to the more advanced classes.

Our review will go up later this week. Fire Emblem: Awakening will be released on February 4, 2013.